The Historical Speakership

    Dr. BILLINGTON. It is my pleasure as Librarian of Congress to be 
here with you at this commemoration of Speaker Cannon and this happy 
gathering of so many distinguished and historymaking Speakers of the 
House. I always say that the Congress of the United States has been the 
greatest single patron of a library in the history of the world, 
gathering in books and materials as no other legislature, or no other 
government for that matter, has done so effectively. The collections 
come to us through copyright deposit of the creative output of the whole 
private sector of America, and also include much of the world's 
knowledge: two-thirds of our books are in languages other than English.
    I have to say that all of the Speakers that have been discussed so 
far, as well as the Speaker yet to come, have themselves played 
interesting and important roles sustaining the idea that every 
democracy--and especially one in a big, complex country like this--has 
to be based on knowledge and on ever more people having ever more access 
to ever more information. That was certainly true of everyone on the 
last panel that spoke, and I want to just take a moment to particularly 
single out Vic Fazio who, in his thankless work as chairman of the 
Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, played a 
particularly important role in the restoration of the Jefferson 
Building, without which that beautiful, extraordinary structure would 
not be seen in the same beauty and majesty that it is today. He also 
offered the first congressional support for the Library's digital 
outreach to the Nation, which has now reached the point that we had 3 
billion electronic transactions last year. This began in a small way 
with an important congressional appropriation, even though it has been 
largely funded by private money.
    And I should also mention in that regard the special role that 
Speaker Newt Gingrich played with his desire to have congressional 
information placed online: the whole THOMAS system owes a great deal to 
his initiative and support. I am here in active, humble gratitude for 
past and future users of the Library of Congress and also to give thanks 
to the private supporters of this important centennial; the foundations 
that have also made it possible; and, of course, to the Congressional 
Research Service under Dan Mulhollan's able leadership for putting all 
of this together.
    My job today is to introduce a real expert on this whole subject, 
Professor Robert Remini. He is associated with the Library to fulfill a 
congressional mandate, a mandate from the House in particular, to 
produce a history of the House of Representatives--one that would have 
scholarly substance and at the same time be accessible to a broad 
audience. We have been very fortunate to have enlisted the services of 
one of the most distinguished of American historians, Robert Remini. He 
is at present a distinguished senior scholar at the Kluge Center at the 
Library of Congress. As some of you may know, last week we gave out the 
first international prize in humanities and social sciences at the Nobel 
level through a Kluge endowment, and that has enabled us to bring some 
very distinguished scholars to the Library of Congress. The former 
President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, just joined us last 
week. One of the most distinguished of all of these scholars is Bob 
Remini, and certainly one of the most important of the projects being 
done there is his history of the House of Representatives.
    Despite the bad light and my failing eyes, I will read you some of 
his many distinctions. He is compiling a congressionally authorized one-
volume narrative history of the House of Representatives, which he has 
called--I'm quoting now--``an extraordinary institution with its vivid 
and sometimes outrageous personalities.'' You can see the little bit of 
adjectival twinkle already even in this brief characterization. He hopes 
his book will capture--I'm quoting again--``all the excitement and drama 
that took place during the past 200 years so that the record of [the 
House's] triumphs, achievements, mistakes and failures can be better 
known and appreciated by the American people.''
    Professor Remini was educated at Fordham University, and graduated 
in 1947 from Columbia University, where he finished his Ph.D. in 1951. 
He has been a teacher of American history for more than 50 years, the 
author of a three-volume biography of Andrew Jackson, and many other 
studies of Jackson's Presidency and of the Jacksonian era. He has also 
written biographies of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, 
and Joseph Smith. We know him as an earlier collaborator with the 
Library of Congress because he crafted the historical overview to a 
volume called Gathering History: the Marion S. Carson Collection of 
Americana in 1999. This is one of the Library's most important private 
collections of American history. It deals particularly with families in 
Pennsylvania from the early 1800s, and includes the first picture of a 
human face probably ever taken anywhere by a photograph, which was 
taken, it turned out, in Philadelphia, and which turned up in this 
collection. Professor Remini brought it to life in this wonderful 
volume, as he has brought to life so much of the American past and 
particularly our history and the functions of our government.
    Thus, we have with us a historian who has looked at America through 
a variety of perspectives from the top down, from the bottom up, through 
the lives of great men, and through the artifacts of American cultural 
life. Now he is writing about the legislative institution that for over 
200 years has grown to be the most consequential one in the free world. 
It is really hard to imagine a person better qualified by his long 
experience, and, I might add, by his energetic prowling of the halls of 
the House that he has been doing for the better part of a year. He has 
won many friends here. It is hard to imagine anyone better qualified by 
learning, experience, and temperament to undertake this task. 
Necessarily, his perspective, of course, has given him some insight into 
the role of Speakers over the years, and it is about them and their 
activities that he will speak to us this afternoon. So, it is my 
pleasure to present to you as close as we will ever get to a full 
chronicler of some of the early history of the House and someone who, 
with his own energy, vitality, and endless questioning for more than a 
year now, has this noble task of recording the story of the most 
important and the most representative legislature in the world. I give 
you Professor Robert Remini.
    Professor REMINI. Thank you very much, Dr. Billington, for that 
gracious introduction. I have a lot of people to thank. First of all, 
the Congressional Research Service who invited me here to come and talk 
about what I'm doing now in writing the history of the House of 
Representatives. I want to begin by singling out Congressman John 
Larson, whose idea it was to have a history written of this most 
important institution. Such a work has never been really done well, but 
there are indeed many books written about the House. I also want to 
thank Dr. Billington for inviting me to become a Kluge Scholar, and for 
providing me with an office in the Library of Congress, where I could 
write the history.
    I wasn't sure I could do justice to this history. I've always done 
biographies. I've never written an institutional history. But all of the 
biographies, or most of them, are about people who have served in the 
House, like Jackson, like Martin Van Buren, like Henry Clay, like Daniel 
Webster, like John Quincy Adams. And I thought writing such a history 
would be fun. I could come into Congress and meet all the Congressmen 
and get involved in congressional politics, observing the problems and 
challenges that the Members have to contend with.
    One of the things that is disheartening to me is that we do not 
honor the men and women who have shaped this most important institution. 
And especially the men who were the Speakers. This institution has 
evolved, and it is continuing to evolve, just as the Office of the 
Speaker has evolved from what Speaker Foley said was the British system. 
Which is what the Founders, I think, intended.
    When I was researching Henry Clay, a student of mine came to me and 
said, ``What are you working on now?'' And I said, ``I'm doing a 
biography of Henry Clay. Do you know who Henry Clay was?'' He said, 
``Sure.'' I said, ``That's wonderful. Who was he?'' He replied, ``He was 
the father of Cassius Clay.'' And he didn't mean the abolitionist 
Cassius Clay, either.
    Who today knows who Henry Clay was, for example? The Senate has 
selected five, I think it is, of their greatest Senators and recognized 
them. There is a room where their portraits are displayed. The presiding 
officers have their busts done after they step down. Two months ago, 
they had a commemorative ceremony for former Vice President Quayle. If 
you go into the Chamber of the House of Representatives, what do you 
see? George Washington--well, that's OK. I mean after all, he is the 
father of the country--you wouldn't have a republic without him. But 
what's his relationship to the House of Representatives? He gave it the 
back of his hand the first time they asked him for the appropriate 
documents related to the Jay Treaty so that they could legislate the 
moneys needed to implement the treaty. He wouldn't give the documents to 
them, replying instead, ``If you want to impeach me, then you can ask 
for these documents.'' But there he stands. In truth, he is the father 
of the country and deserving of great honor.
    On the other side of the rostrum is the Marquis de LaFayette. Now 
you tell me in God's name what did LaFayette have to do with the House 
of Representatives? He was the first foreigner to speak to the House. 
Big deal. You see what I mean? Rather, we should honor the people who 
have done important things in the House such as Henry Clay. The 
Founders, I think, intended that the legislature would be central to the 
whole governmental operation. Notice the Constitution talks a great deal 
about the Congress and all of its responsibilities and powers while 
those not listed are reserved to the States and the people. But then you 
look at the other two branches, which are supposed to be separate and 
equal, and there is relatively little discussion. The judiciary--there 
will be a supreme court and such inferior courts as Congress shall, from 
time to time, establish. The executive was not much better. He may 
receive reports from the departments. What departments? It does not say. 
It was up to the Congress, then, to flesh out these other two co-equal 
branches.
    It was also expected that the men who attended the First Congress 
would complete the process of establishing the government, and indeed 
they did. First, they chose a Speaker. As the present Speaker, Dennis 
Hastert, said, ``That's the first office that is mentioned.'' And in 
creating the office they were thinking, I believe, of someone akin to 
the British Speaker, who was nothing more than a traffic cop, 
recognizing one person over another, calling for votes, being non-
partisan.
    The Office of the Speaker changed almost immediately with the 
formation of political parties because then you had two distinct views 
about how the government should operate. And I must say, as an aside, 
that what has happened here today having this conference is something 
that should be done much more often. There ought to be a greater 
awareness and sense of our past. We honor the living Speakers here 
present, but how about those who came before? This is, in part, my job 
and I think the fact that the Members of the House have asked for a 
history of their institution shows some indication that they are anxious 
to have the collective memory of the House preserved and respected.
    Theodore Sedgwick was the first Speaker who really used his office 
in a partisan way. But none of those early leaders were really creative 
in revolutionizing the office. Not until you get Henry Clay. He was 
elected on the first vote of the first day of his own tenure in the 
House. But the Members knew who he was, and his reputation. They wanted 
somebody who could really lead this country in the direction that they 
felt they needed to go. And here was a man who saw his opportunity to 
take an office which was practically insignificant and so reshape it to 
be the most powerful in the country politically after the Office of the 
President. Because that is what, in effect, he did. And the Members who 
elected him Speaker knew he would be dealing with very difficult men, in 
particular John Randolph of Roanoke. Randolph had been a powerful 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and Jefferson's floor manager 
in the House until he broke with him. He brought his dogs into the 
House. How about that? And anybody who tried to interfere, he would 
strike them with his riding whip. It was chaotic.
    Let me give you an example of some of the chaos that we've had in 
the House. I'm sort of jumping out of the period for the moment, but 
I'll be right back. I'm quoting from the Cincinnati Enquire of June 20, 
1884. ``If every man in the House should fall dead in his seat, it would 
be a God's blessing to the country. And in less than two months, we 
would have a new set of men who would be just as wise and good as their 
predecessors. Today the Congress is a conclave of hirelings, wind bags, 
mediocrities and dawdlers. Members of the House are sprawled in their 
chairs and put their feet on the desks. They abuse door keepers, munch 
peanuts, apples, toothpicks, suck unlit cigars. [Uncle Joe Cannon was a 
great one for sucking unlit cigars.] Spit tobacco on the rugs and 
carpets and clean their fingernails with pocket knives. No matter how 
persistently the Speaker pounded the gavel, the representatives kept 
right on talking to one another. With bar rooms in the cloak rooms and 
below stairs, whiskey flowed as freely as oratory. Saturdays were 
special in the House--then representatives could hold forth with bunkum 
speeches that no one heeded on any subject they pleased and fill 70 
pages of the Congressional Record.''
    It was when you had strong leadership and Speakers who embrace a 
vision of where they think the country needs to go and have the will, 
the brains, the strength to direct them in that direction, toward that 
goal, that is when the House really asserts its authority. Clay had his 
American system, and for 10 years it was the House of Representatives, 
under his direction, that determined domestic policy in this country, 
which is amazing. But he had problems in handling particular Members. A 
man like John Randolph of Roanoke, for example. They finally fought a 
duel, as you probably know. Once, they were walking down the street 
toward one another, each coming closer and closer, neither willing to 
give way. Let the other man step aside for me. And when they got 
practically eyeball to eyeball, Randolph stopped in his tracks and he 
looked at Clay and said, ``I never side-step skunks.'' When Henry Clay 
heard that he said, ``I always do.'' And he jumped out of the way!
    Speakers have to be smart to be great, I find. Sam Rayburn said it 
best, ``You need two things to be Speaker: brains and backbone.'' I have 
found that many of the great Speakers have very sharp minds and very 
sharp tongues. You heard what Speaker Foley said about Speaker Reed--
I've got a lot of examples of Reed's quick mind and tongue. For example, 
he said to one Representative at the time, ``You are too big a fool to 
lead and you haven't got enough sense to follow.'' In other words you're 
useless.
    Henry Clay, of course, is a very unique figure. And the pity is that 
he has not had the attention and recognition that the House itself ought 
to accord him. And, it should be noted, when you don't have a Henry 
Clay, you get a Thaddeus Stevens, who isn't the Speaker, he's the 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, but during Reconstruction, the 
most powerful man operating in the House. It's not until you get toward 
the end of the century with Samuel Randall and Thomas Reed that things 
change, men who then begin to realize that the only way you can really 
do the people's business and get men to attend to their duties is to use 
the rules and shape the rules for that purpose.
    Many Speakers have described what they believe are the 
responsibilities of a Speaker. Notice the Speaker today talked about 
what he felt his duties were. Henry Clay, when he spoke of them, said 
that they ``enjoin promptitude and impartiality in deciding various 
questions of order as they arise; firmness and dignity in his deportment 
toward the House; patience, good temper, and courtesy toward the 
individual Members, and the best arrangement and distribution of talent 
of the House, in its numerous subdivisions for the dispatch of the 
public business, and the fair exhibition of every subject presented for 
consideration. They especially require of him, in those moments of 
agitation from which no deliberative assembly is always exempted, to 
remain cool and unshaken amidst all the storms of debate, carefully 
guarding the preservation of the permanent laws and rules of the House 
from being sacrificed to temporary passions, prejudice or interests.''
    Each of the many men who have served in this office tries to 
describe his duties in a way that recognizes that there is this tension 
between a man who is really the majority leader of his party and also 
the presiding officer of the House who is expected to be impartial and 
even-handed in his relations with all the Members.
    In the 19th century, they didn't have a majority or a minority 
leader as such. Presumably, the man who lost the election for Speaker 
from the opposite party was the minority leader. But there was no whip. 
All of that comes at the end of the 19th century. And the role of 
Speaker is one in which he uses his office to forward a program or a 
vision that he has (or is stated in the party platform) that says that 
these are the things that we stand for, that we feel are important and 
helpful to the American people, and want to see legislated. Yet he has 
another role, which is to be the moderator of a number of men who can 
disagree violently and have in the past actually attacked each other 
with knives. We have lots of stories just before the Civil War, as you 
know, when they were physically attacking one another because of their 
differences over slavery. How do you balance those two aspects of the 
Speaker's position? Notice that the Speakers today always mention that 
they tried to be fair in their dealings with all the Members to be sure 
everybody and each side receives equal treatment. Reed, who was probably 
the first great Speaker after Clay, said this: ``Whenever it is imposed 
upon Congress to accomplish a certain work, it is the duty of the 
Speaker who represents the House and who, in his official capacity is 
the embodiment of the House to carry out that rule of law or of the 
Constitution. It then becomes his duty to see that no factious 
opposition prevents the House from doing its duty. He must brush away 
all unlawful combinations to misuse the rules and he must hold the House 
strictly to its work.'' He also said, ``The best system to have is one 
in which one party governs and the other party watches. And on general 
principle, I think it would be better for us to govern and the Democrats 
to watch.''
    He had trouble with the Democrats who would pull what was called a 
``disappearing quorum.'' They would call for a roll call, and they were 
present in the Chamber, and those who did not respond when their names 
were called were marked absent. Finally, Reed decided he would put an 
end to the disappearing quorum. So when the clerk called the roll and an 
individual didn't answer, the clerk was ready to mark him ``absent.'' 
When the clerk got to the Member from Kentucky by the name of McCreary, 
who did not answer and would normally be marked absent, Reed directed 
the clerk to mark him present.
    McCreary objected. ``I deny your right, Mr. Speaker,'' he said, ``to 
count me as present.'' Then Reed very calmly turned to him and said, 
``The Chair is making a statement of the fact that the gentleman from 
Kentucky is present. Does he deny it?'' So from then on, if a Member was 
physically present in the House, he was counted present whether he said 
``present'' or not. Sometimes when they would start the roll call, 
Members would duck under the chairs and under the tables so they 
wouldn't be seen.
    Dilatory amendments were another technique to stall action on bills. 
Sometimes the session ended with 1,000 bills still waiting for action. 
When Reed was Speaker not only did they pass all the bills they were 
supposed to, they appropriated for the first time $1 billion. And people 
said, ``My God--a billion dollars.'' And Reed responded, ``It's a 
billion dollar country.'' Joseph Cannon inherited this power. Now Cannon 
was a very gregarious, delightful, loveable tyrant. He used his power to 
maintain the status quo. They said if there had been a meeting or a 
caucus to decide whether creation would be brought up out of chaos, 
Cannon would have voted for chaos rather than creation. Let's keep 
things the way they are. This was his motto. When he was the chairman of 
the Appropriations Committee, he supposedly said, ``You think my 
business is to make appropriations, it is not. It is to prevent their 
being made.'' That gives you some idea of his position. He also said to 
William McKinley, ``That it was easier for a politician to get along 
with a reputation as a sinner than with a reputation as a saint. I have 
been accused of being a profane man, who played cards and showed other 
evil tendencies. While McKinley had a reputation for being thoroughly 
good and kind and gentle. Who never swore or took a drink or played a 
game of cards. He couldn't talk plainly to people because of his 
gentleness. And he could not take a glass of beer without shocking the 
temperance people who had endorsed him. On the other hand, I could do 
much as I pleased without unduly shocking anybody. For little was 
expected of me. If I showed gentility, I simply caused surprise at my 
improvement. Or,'' he said, ``I could throw the responsibility on the 
newspapers for misrepresenting me.''
    Cannon also said that he had looked into the matter of being 
Speaker. ``I have control of the South half of the Capitol. I manage the 
police, run the restaurant, settle contests over committee rooms and in 
general, I'm a Poo Bah \1\.'' The Speaker who followed him was a totally 
different man. As you know, Cannon became Speaker in 1903, which is 100 
years ago. So in that sense, we do honor him particularly today. He 
showed what it was like to have the kind of government in which nothing 
really happened. He opposed any kind of reform, whether it came from his 
own party or not. He disliked Teddy Roosevelt and his program, as well 
as the program of the opposition.
\1\ A reference to a character from Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The 
Mikado.
    But he finally pushed it too far. The revolution continued and he 
was stripped of his powers in 1910. The House then had to remake itself 
and the Office of the Speaker. You have people coming forward like 
Nicholas Longworth, who aided the process. When he was elected Speaker 
he recognized this tension between presiding over the House and leading 
his party. He said, ``I propose to administer with the most rigid 
impartiality, with an eye single to the maintenance, to the fullest 
degree, of the dignity and the honor of the House and the rights and the 
privileges of its members. I promise you that there will be no such 
thing as favoritism in the treatment by the chair of either parties or 
individuals. But on the other hand, the political side, to my mind, 
involves a question of party service. I believe it to be the duty of the 
speaker standing squarely on the platform of his party to assist in so 
far as he properly can the enactment of legislation in accordance with 
the declared principles and politics of his party. And by the same 
token, to resist the enactment of legislation in variance thereof. I 
believe in responsible party government.''
    I think, following him, the most important Speaker--and I'm not 
going to comment at all on those who are still living. I'll have my say 
when the book is finished later in a few years--was Sam Rayburn, who 
presided longer than any other Speaker. He is a fit candidate for 
recognition as a statesman and great leader. Lyndon Johnson seemed to 
think otherwise. He claimed, ``Rayburn is a piss poor administrator. He 
doesn't anticipate problems and he runs the House out of his back ass 
pocket.'' Others had a better opinion in which one man said, ``Mr. Sam 
is very convincing. There he stands, his left hand on your right 
shoulder holding your coat button. Looking at you out of honest eyes 
that reflect the sincerest emotions. He's so dammed sincere and 
dedicated to a cause, and he believes in his country and his job, and he 
knows it inside out so well that I would feel pretty dirty to turn him 
down and not trust him knowing that he would crawl to my assistance if I 
needed him.'' I think that almost sounds like what they [participants in 
this conference] were saying earlier with respect to Tip O'Neill. 
Rayburn himself said--and I mentioned this before--that a man needs to 
have a backbone and brains in his head. He remembered Reed, and he said, 
``I remember him well--big head, big brains.'' He added, ``I always 
wanted responsibility, because I wanted power. The power that 
responsibility brings. I hate like hell to be licked. It always kills 
me.''
    I think what the Speakers, the good ones, have learned is that the 
only way you get things done is not to treat the Members the way this 
man [pointing to a picture of Cannon] did, as just servants or slaves to 
do his bidding. Instead, treat those men as his equal, to whom he can go 
and make his pitch with all of the sincerity and the passion in him if 
he really cares about the bill that he's trying to sponsor, and get 
these men to know that he feels sincerely that this is what the people 
want. This is what is good for the country. Because that, in the long 
run, is what their duty is to the country, to the Nation. They are 
legislating for all of us and we only hope to God they are doing it for 
all the right reasons and are led by men and women who care passionately 
about what they were doing.
    My research has taught me something else that surprised me. And that 
was how intelligent, how gifted so many of the men and women who are 
Representatives today really are and how mistaken the American people 
are about the quality of the men and women who serve them. I think it is 
a great shame, and I hope to do something to change that opinion. Thank 
you very much.
    Dr. BILLINGTON. We're a little over time, but I think we have time 
for perhaps one question if there is one from the floor.
    Question. Is there in Longworth's speakership the beginnings of the 
process of trying to find the levers by which to recentralize power in 
the House that continues through Rayburn and subsequent Speakers. Can 
you speak to that?
    Professor REMINI. You see, you have two different types, and I 
didn't really have time to develop them, in which you get men who are 
very, very intelligent, quick-witted, well-read. And those who come out 
of the prairie like Uncle Joe and are much more interested in the 
process rather than in the results. And they know, of course, that they 
have these levers of power and they have to use them. When it got to a 
point where power was misused, then you got a new man, Longworth, who 
was intelligent, educated, and felt passionately about the House and 
what he was doing. He was a man of great ability to handle different 
sides of a difficult question. He could handle difficult people. After 
all, he was married to Alice Roosevelt, who was a very difficult woman. 
He knew how to win compromises. You know, I'm going off on a tangent, 
but I hope I'm making the point.
    When I wrote my book on Henry Clay, the title of it was Henry Clay: 
The Great Compromiser. And the editor said that, ``No, today people 
think of compromisers as men and women who have no principles at all.'' 
But that is not what Henry Clay was. Henry Clay was looking for 
solutions to avoid conflict. To him compromise meant simply this: that 
each side gives something that the other side wants so that there is no 
loser and no winner. Because if you have a loser and a winner, you are 
going to perpetuate the quarrel. The only way to resolve these problems 
is to give a little, to get a little, and be willing to accept that. 
That's what happened with the Missouri Compromise. That's what happened 
with the Compromise of 1850. That's what happened with the Compromise 
Tariff of 1833. And that was the lesson that they understood.
    This is what Longworth then tried to do. He wanted to compromise the 
differences between those like Cannon who wanted an authoritarian kind 
of leadership, and those who were determined to go the other way and 
have a freewheeling, very liberal kind of leadership. And it's that kind 
of individual who can find those means to make men who have to work 
together co-exist. That's why I think it's important today to have 
sessions like this, so that men and women of the two different parties 
can at least speak to one another. Did you notice how often it was 
mentioned today the civility that once existed seems to have been 
diminished? Oh, there's always incivility. When Thomas Hart Benton made 
some remarks that offended southerners, the argument became very heated. 
When one southerner reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol, 
Benton tore open his shirt and said, ``Shoot, you damn assassin--
shoot.'' And you can imagine what happened in the Chamber.
    Oh, there are some glorious scenes of pandemonium in the House and 
in the Senate as men tried to compromise their differences. And I'm not 
saying that you have to give up what is essential to your position. But 
you have to give in order to take. I don't want to go into any specifics 
with Longworth as to his style. It would take more time than I have. But 
it is that kind of leadership, I think, that makes the difference 
between great Speakers and those who are failures. I've always thought 
that Speakers are like Presidents. We've had great ones and we've had 
failures, and a lot of in-betweens. We have the Lincolns and the 
Washingtons and the Roosevelts who were Speakers, and we also have the 
Buchanans and the Hardings. The difference, I think, is one in which men 
try to bring about a consensus for the sake of the American people and 
what they need and what has to be done.
    Dr. BILLINGTON. Many of you will remember that for the 200th 
anniversary of the Congress, David McCullough spoke to a joint session 
and pointed out how little attention has been paid to the history of the 
Congress. He specifically mentioned a large list of Speakers for whom 
there is no reliable, serious biography. Certainly the historical study 
of the Congress as a whole is an important and neglected subject. I know 
that former Congressman John Brademas is trying to set up an institute 
for the study of Congress at New York University. There is great and 
growing interest in this subject. So I hope that this conference is not 
the last where we will get people together so that we hear both from the 
distinguished Members who have sat in these important positions and from 
the historical profession that gives us some perspective on it all. I 
think you will all want to join me in thanking Bob Remini for sharing 
with us his vitality and enthusiasm, that I think is infectious, and his 
knowledge. We all look forward to seeing those qualities in the history 
of the House when it comes out. Thank you again.